Why India upped the ante?

There is a mad frenzy of activities by India to create mayhem in Pakistan. There are gross violations of the Line of Control (LOC), the number of suicide attacks as well as terror assaults has risen exponentially while ethnic and sectarian violence incidents have shaken the nation. Karachi, the economic capital of Pakistan has been conflict ridden for the past many years but wanton killing sprees gained momentum in the last week. Law enforcing agencies point out the involvement of India and its dreaded intelligence agency RAW in all these recent outburst of violence. The obvious question that arises is why India would frantically choose to up the ante at this juncture.

Apparently there a number of reasons for this onslaught. Since January 2013, India started violating the LOC, killing Pakistani soldiers but blaming Pakistan for cross border terrorism. The prime rationale at that time was diverting attention of the Indian masses from various corruption scandals of its senior officers of the Indian Armed Forces. The involvement of Indian senior ranked army officers of General ranks in corruption cases has become a serious cause of concern for the whole Indian Army and India’s political leadership. This factor has also lowered the confidence of Indian soldiers over their military leadership because the corruption scandals are not confined to financial fraud but also include moral trepidation like rape and sexual harassment of female military personnel and civilians. Additionally a disclosure of senior Indian military officers, which indulges in wife swapping and group sex has rocked the boat. It may be mentioned here that rape of Indian women is not limited to the military but the thousands of rape victims including Indian women and foreigners visiting India have been protesting, demanding protection.

Amongst this wave of scandals, Indian establishment including its political leadership, military and media commences a campaign against Pakistan to divert the attention of its masses and incisive media. The January 2013 Indian violations of LOC ultimately subsided when foreign investors in India started expressing discomfiture.

The February 2013 hanging of Afzal Guru has resulted in mass protests in Indian Occupied Kashmir. Readers may recall that Afzal Guru was arrested on charges of being the mastermind of the alleged attack on Indian Parliament Building in New Delhi on 13 December 2001. Four of the alleged perpetrators were killed on the spot while Delhi police had surreptitiously produced Pakistani National Identity Cards and SIMs of Pakistani cell phone systems from the person of the alleged assailants. Blaming Pakistan for the attack, India amassed troops along Pakistan’s international boundary but Pakistan’s timely reaction of counter deployment of its forces thwarted any Indian adventurism but Indian forces remained on the war-deployment for eleven months. Indian troops’ withdrawal took place after international investors started departing from India and moral and mental state of Indian soldiers deteriorated to the extent that they started attacking their own officers and suffered mental sickness.

The trial of Afzal Guru was a sham and despite the failure of Indian law enforcing agencies, its judiciary condemned him to the gallows under pressure from Indian hawks. The protests of Kashmiris exacerbated when a senior Indian Intelligence officer submitted a sworn affidavit in the Supreme Court that both the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament Building and November 2008 Mumbai attacks were orchestrated by Indian security agencies.

The attacks on the LOC came about after Indian crackdown on the hapless Kashmiris. Additionally, both the hawkish Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian Congress are likely to face the wrath of their electorate when they face them in the forthcoming general elections as both have failed to uplift the status of its impoverished masses. The only way left for them is to foment trouble with Pakistan and redirect the ire of the masses towards their favorite whipping boy Pakistan thus again the choreographed drama at the LOC and allegations of Pakistani soldiers infiltrating and killing five Indian soldiers. Indian lie should be nailed. The LOC has been fenced and mined by India, besides concertina wire, the barbed barriers are electrocuted and armed patrolling with ferocious dogs is regularly carried out, forestalling any penetration.

The timing of the LOC drama was also ominous since UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was visiting Pakistan and India wanted to paint Pakistan in a negative light as it has been doing in the past few decades whenever a high level international dignitary is visiting India or Pakistan, a bloody massacre is carried out of Indian citizens and Pakistan is blamed for it.

The night between 13 and 14 June, on the eve of Pakistan’s Independence Day, the explosion on board Indian Naval Submarine Sindhurakhshak unveiled another more macabre episode, which was to unfold shortly against Pakistan. This has now been gleaned from Indian media sources.

A couple of weeks back, Indian participants in a war-game in a neighbouring country had contemplated a surgical strike against Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the Amir of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah after playing a scenario of a supposed attack during a cricket match in India which was being attended by political and Indian film industry bigwigs. The Indians were adamant that the attack on Hafiz Saeed was justified since they claim that he was involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks and have even convinced the US to announce a $10 million bounty for Hafiz Saeed.

It has to be read between the lines that Indian media disclosed that INS/M Sindhurakshak was armed and setting off on a war mission. The US had closed down its Consulate in Lahore but not Karachi or Islamabad, because it may have had secret information of the probable Indian attack on Muridke. The heating of tensions at the LOC, the surreptitious moves by Indian Navy and possible involvement of Indian Air Force, belligerent and unprecedented warnings by Indian Army, Navy and Air Chiefs all point to a possible Indian adventurism in Muridke. Perhaps fate has intervened this time but Indian conspiracies against Pakistan will not cease and we should be vigilant.